Voice and piano. The combination can have a simplicity, a conversational freedom, a rightness about it, as it does here. “My Ideal” (Dot Time), with its eleven songs from the early days of jazz up to the 1950s, is already being placed alongside classic duo albums by Ella Fitzgerald with Ellis Larkins, or the great pairing of Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, and it is indeed a very fine and uplifting album.
The sixth track of the album, its centrepiece, “Ain’t That Love”, shows off the intimate vibe of the duo particularly well. Vocalist Catherine Russell and pianist Sean Mason clearly know the Ray Charles 1957 hit to its absolute core, but once the tambourines of the original have been silenced, the backing vocalists who echo the singer are dispensed with and the horn section jettisoned, what remains is remarkable: a persuasive yet totally different take on the song. Sean Mason’s R&B piano playing here is a delight, particularly the moment where he gives Russell a sudden gift of silence for the “Baby let me hold your hand” verse.
And there are other songs which come across newly-minted with Russell’s vocal authority and Mason’s unfailingly lively piano playing. Peggy Lee’s “Waiting for the train” from 1945 is authentically impassioned. Russell and Mason create a very different world from Frank Sinatra's in “South to a Warmer Place”. Whereas Sinatra's version was gloopily orchestrated and bathed in foreboding, Russell’s is a more welcoming place with far more positivity about it.
There is fun to be had too, as Russell makes light of the double entendres of Clara Smith’s “Ain’t Got Nobody to Grind My Coffee” from 1928, much as she has previously done on a previous album with Rosa Henderson’s "He May Be Your Dog But He's Wearing My Collar".
This album is also a remarkable meeting of generations and lives and breathes its links to the past with authenticity. Catherine Russell (b.1956) has a fascinating backstory, An early career as a backing vocalist to the stars (Donald Fagen, David Bowie and Madonna…), meant that she has appeared on more than 200 albums. She then decided she no longer wanted to “compete with electric guitars”; and has been plying her fine craft as a vocalist in acoustic settings ever since. She made her first album in her own name in 2006. So far two of them have been nominated for a Grammy, and “My Ideal” is the ninth.
Russell’s family musical background is fascinating too: she has a particular personal and direct link back to a time when jazz really was popular music in every sense: her father Luis Russell (1902-1963) worked for eight years as Louis Armstrong’s Musical Director. And Russell’s mother was the pioneering multi-instrumentalist and singer Carline Ray.
The pianist on “My Ideal” is Sean Mason (b.1998). The North Carolina-born musician who made a huge impression on Branford Marsalis as a teenager, attended Juilliard, and his debut album has appeared recently on Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Blue Engine Label, Mason is making a real name for himself, and the first sounds to be heard on the album show his deep and uncanny understanding of the James P Johnson/ Fats Waller stride piano era.
Catherine Russell has said that the duo with Sean Mason gives her “the freedom to have fun and be in the moment.” Who could ask for anything more?
- My Ideal is released on Dot Time Records on 23 August
- Catherine Russell will make her Ronnie Scott’s debut on 30 September
- More new music reviews from theartsdesk
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